Democrat Cory Booker made a strategic decision before last year’s special U.S. Senate election not to engage his Republican opponent Steve Lonegan, and the conservative firebrand savaged the carefully polished image Booker had built during two terms as Newark’s mayor.

Though Booker won by 11 percentage points, the margin was seen as a disappointment.

This year will be different, Booker’s campaign manager, Brendan Gill, said Wednesday.

“We don’t want to just win, want to win decisively,” Gill said. “We want to make sure, as we have been, that Cory is paying close attention to issues in the state and spending lots of time in |the state.”

Instead of facing the hard-charging Lonegan, Booker will square off for a full six-year term against the more policy-focused Jeff Bell, who won Tuesday’s primary without the support of any of the county Republican organizations, just as he did in 1978 when he defeated Sen. Clifford Case, a moderate, in that year’s primary.

Bell, 70, moved back to New Jersey in February after 30 years in Virginia, where he worked for think tanks and advocacy groups, because he couldn’t persuade policymakers to take up what he sees as the solution to the nation’s economic problems: a return to the gold standard in setting the value of the dollar.

“The congressmen I was talking to and federal candidates were afraid and unwilling to take up the issue, so I felt that there was a chance that even with limited resources, that I could communicate the issue to average voters,” Bell said Wednesday.

Unofficial results showed Bell won 30 percent of the total vote against three opponents who also struggled to get attention.

“It is possible, if you have the right issue in the right year, to upset the incumbent U.S. senator of New Jersey,” he said at a news conference in Freehold, where he was endorsed by second-place finisher Richard Pezzullo.

“In order to get this fight going, I’m going to throw all of my support behind Jeff Bell,” said Pezzullo, who had refused to concede Tuesday night as unofficial tallies showed him with about 35,000 votes to Bell’s 42,000.

Brian D. Goldberg and Murray Sabrin, who finished third and fourth, respectively, also called Wednesday for the party to unite.

One Republican who did not comment on Bell’s win was Governor Christie, though he did issue statements through the Republican Governors Association on Tuesday night congratulating gubernatorial primary winners in Alabama, Iowa, New Mexico and South Dakota.

Instead, Christie’s spokesman referred questions about the New Jersey Senate race to the governor’s longtime political consultant Michael DuHaime, who did not respond.

Bell said he would welcome Christie’s support.

As Bell sought to build support within his party, Booker on Wednesday shared a stage with former President Bill Clinton and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell at the funeral service for Lewis Katz, the co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and a former owner of the New Jersey Nets who was killed Saturday in a plane crash.

It was a sign of the role the 45-year-old Booker has assumed as a nationally known Democrat. He continues to use Twitter to communicate with his 1.5 million followers, and has already traveled to or plans to visit Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina to campaign for fellow Democrats facing tough reelections.

His campaign manager said Booker will try to be helpful to his Senate colleagues, but it is more important that he focus on his job as senator and run an aggressive race so that he can help other Democrats on the ballot this year, including candidates for the House and local offices.

Booker is running for a full term because the special election last year only covered the remainder of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s term, which ends in January.

Booker is considered the clear favorite not only because of the state’s Democratic leanings, his incumbency, and his high profile, but also because he had nearly $3 million in his campaign account even before the primary was held. By contrast, Bell raised about $76,000 and put in $35,000 of his own money.

Bell’s conservative positions also are at odds with New Jersey voters, Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray said.

“If Booker has to go this far, and I don’t think he does, he can talk about how Bell is anti-choice, anti-gay-marriage, and those things just get independents in New Jersey concerned,” Murray said. “That’s why Democrats win Senate races. It’s a tried-and-true tactic.”

The last time a Republican won a Senate seat in New Jersey was 1972. That winner was Case, the four-term moderate whom Bell then defeated in the 1978 primary.

Lonegan’s line of attack on Booker’s record in Newark has less potency now, Murray said, unless a major scandal develops involving Booker personally.

“If it’s just bad management of Newark, then it doesn’t matter,” Murray said. “Voters change the context in which they view things, and if they’re voting on an incumbent senator, they view it as whether he’s done a good enough job to earn reelection.”

Bell said he would make the gold standard the focus of his campaign, and believes he can do it in a way that engages average voters.

While Booker is sponsoring a bill that would allow for college loans to be refinanced to take advantage of low interest rates, Bell said that near-zero interest rates being offered on savings are harming the economy because retirees have seen their incomes drop while costs continue to grow.